


No daughters, only Soldiers

by UncleTouchyLich



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Gen, Hurt, Injury, Loss, Near Death, Near Death Experiences, Noxus, One Shot, Short, Short One Shot, War, dream - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 05:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15901548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UncleTouchyLich/pseuds/UncleTouchyLich
Summary: In the midst of it, Swain's words still find him.





	No daughters, only Soldiers

The battle had faded, muffled like… like what? Darius thought for a moment of the littered beaches by the Basilich port. That’s what he recalled, wasn’t it- scouring them with his brother, holding a seashell to his ear, curious, hearing the muffled rush of the ocean. It was the same rush, the sound of blood in his ears and the sound of the long-forgotten sea and the way the world went away, muffled. Falling into the ocean. There it was, a moment of white hot panic and terror, stabbing at his gut like the flint blade of a berserker that had cost him so much time in the medic tent. He didn’t want to fall into water in his armor- he didn’t want to drown like this.

But this wasn’t an ocean. It was a meadow, a meadow in the noon sun. The rush became the wind in the long grass and the wildflowers and they moved like the ocean before his eyes. He squinted, shielding his eyes, looking out to the endless hills, making sure it wasn’t the sea and the colors of the wildflowers bled and swam.

Why was he in his armor? Why was he in armor at all? This was his land- that must be it. He’d come home. He’d come home at last, and he’d never need to go back. Everyone was provided for, every job was done. Better yet, he’d never been a Soldier at all. This wasn’t his armor. It was heavy, cumbersome, it weighed him down as he tried to take one step then another into the meadow. He was calling for them, looking for them. They were lost. He was lost and the armor bit into him in the unforgiving sun.

He heard his daughter calling him. Darius whirled around to see her waving, waving from a nearby hill, the sun behind her, one arm full of wildflowers, her dark hair caught in the wind. She was calling her father home. If the unfamiliar armor wasn’t so heavy he would have run to her. All he wanted was to run to her, pick her up, hold her up high and hear her laugh and ask her where her mother was, ask her- ask her what her mother looked like and why he can remember the faces of dying men and not how her mother used to smile or the sound of her voice or how the crook of her neck smelled when she was sleeping.

Darius hears her calling and he can’t make himself be heard over the wind and he can’t make out his daughter’s words and if he could only get a little closer he could see her face, perhaps he could still feel her run and embrace him. But the sun is setting, setting so fast that Darius feels that he must be falling backwards, falling away from the world, into the world, out of the world, drawn down by the weight of the armor, the axe. No- His armor, his axe.

Darius surfaced, back in the dark of the medic tent and the smell of gunsmoke and blood. 

He remembered now. No daughters. Only soldiers. He preferred the nightmares.

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for my friend, (league-of-baras.tumblr.com) when they were having a hard time. I owe them so much love. I wanted to see what I could do for their beautiful version of Darius. A short dream for a tribute.  
> Originally posted to not-the-lich.tumblr.com


End file.
